System for routing electronic mails

ABSTRACT

A system for routing electronic mails to one of a plurality of support persons in a processing center is disclosed. Each person has a skill set that is suitable for responding to a certain type of e-mails. The system comprises an e-mail server for receiving the e-mail from a sender, an information extractor for extracting relevant information from the e-mail, and a router for routing the e-mail. The system contains a database for storing information related to all persons who can answer e-mails. The system also contains a server for storing the history of all activities in the system. The router can make routing decisions based on the information stored in the database and the server.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to electronic mails, and more particularlyto a system for routing electronic mails to the best qualified personwho can answer the mail.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Electronic mail (e-mail) has recently become one of the most commonlyused communication tool in business. As more and more homes areconnected to the Internet, it could become an important communicationtool for homes also.

In the simplest case, electronic mail is the delivery of a text-basedmessage from a sending computer to one or more recipient computers. Thesending and recipient computers are connected to a data network.Typically, the message is temporarily stored in a server of the datanetwork. The recipient computers (users) can retrieve the stored messageat their convenience.

Many users find that sending e-mails is more convenient than sendingletters. The user can type a few lines on a computer, enter a simplee-mail address, press a button, and the message is sent. There is noneed to print out the message, put it in an envelope, write a longaddress, and deliver the letter to a mail-box. This is especiallyimportant when the user is traveling because he/she may not have accessto printers, envelopes, stamps, and mail-boxes. Because of theconvenience, people tend to write a lot of e-mails, which promotecommunication. The increased communication improves efficiency, whichtends to have a positive effect of profitability of a company.

Although many companies recognize the benefits of e-mails, some of themhave installed e-mail systems only recently. This is because e-mailsystems in the past were proprietary systems. Messages can only bedelivered if the senders and recipients use the same proprietary system.The proprietary nature of these e-mail systems means that each systemcan only be accessed by persons associated with the same organization(such as a company or an on-line service provider). It is very difficultto send messages to an intended recipient outside of the system. Thus, amessage can only reach a relatively small number of computers (i.e.,users). Unless the company has many employees, the costs of setting upan e-mail system may be much higher than the anticipated benefits.

Recently, many companies and homes have been connected to the Internet,which is a world-wide open data network connecting tens of millions ofcomputers. One of the reasons for its popularity is that the cost ofaccessing the Internet is very low. Another reason is that the Internetoffers many resources in addition to e-mails. Each user of the Internetis assigned an e-mail address that is recognizable around the world. Acomputer connected to the Internet can send e-mails to any one of thesee-mail addresses. As a result, it is possible to communicateelectronically with many people at any time.

As a result of the popularity and convenience of e-mails, many companiesallow their customers to send comments and request information andservices using e-mails. Typically, these companies set up one or morespecific e-mail addresses for these purposes. These mails are typicallyanswered on a first come, first serve basis.

It is found that many of these mails were lost or unanswered. There aremany reasons for this problem. One reason is that the person who issupposed to process an e-mail may not be familiar with the subjectmatter of the e-mail. Thus, this e-mail is left unanswered. One solutionis for the person to forward the e-mail to another person who may bemore familiar with the subject matter. This increases data traffic andwork-load for everyone. Further, there is no guarantee that the intendedrecipient is available to reply to the e-mail. Consequently, there is aneed to have a more efficient system to handle this problem.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention involves a system for routing an e-mail to one ofa plurality of support persons in a processing center. Each person has askill set that is suitable for responding to a certain type of e-mails.Thus, it is more efficient to route the e-mail to an available personwho is best qualified to answer the mail. The system comprises an e-mailserver for receiving the e-mail from a sender, an information extractorfor extracting relevant information from the e-mail, and a router forrouting the e-mail. In one embodiment of the invention, the systemcontains a database for storing information related to all persons whocan answer e-mails. The system also comprises a statistic server (alsocalled stat-server) for storing the history of all activities in thesystem. The router can make routing decisions based on the informationstored in the database and the server.

These and other features of the present invention will be disclosed inthe following description of the invention together with theaccompanying drawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an e-mail processing center of thepresent invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a e-mail to CTI server adaptor used in thee-mail processing center of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a flow chart showing the operation of the e-mail processingcenter of FIG. 1.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

The present invention comprises a novel routing system for electronicmails and related methods. The following description is presented toenable any person skilled in the art to make and use the invention.Descriptions of specific applications are provided only as examples.Various modifications to the preferred embodiments will be readilyapparent to those skilled in the art, and the general principles definedherein may be applied to other embodiments and applications withoutdeparting from the spirit and scope of the invention. Thus, the presentinvention is not intended to be limited to the embodiments shown, but isto be accorded the widest scope consistent with the principles andfeatures disclosed herein.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an e-mail processing center 100 of thepresent invention. Processing center 100 contains an e-mail server 102which is connected to a data network 104. Data network 104 could be alocal area network or a wide-area network (such as the Internet or anintranet). Other data processing devices, such as computers 106 and 108,are also connected to data network 104. All the data processing devicescan send e-mails to each other. As a result, some of the e-mails aresent to e-mail server 102.

As an example, it is assumed that one of the addresses associated withe-mail server 102 is "support@abc-company.com". This is an address forcustomers of a company named "ABC" to send in questions regardingproducts and services provided by the company. It is anticipated thatthe subject matters of the e-mails are diverse and the number of mailsis large. For example, the e-mails may relate to all aspects of theproducts and services offered by ABC. Some of the e-mails may containtechnical questions of a product. Other e-mails may report a bug in asoftware sold by ABC. A few e-mails may contain suggestions on improvingthe products and services. If support persons of ABC are assigned toanswer some of the e-mails on a first come first serve basis, it wouldbe very difficult for them to do so because it is almost impossible fora single person to know everything about ABC.

One aspect of the present invention is a system for automaticallyrouting the e-mails to the most qualified and available support person.For example, a support person may be an expert in one product of ABC.All e-mails related to this product will be routed to this personautomatically. Further, the system can distribute the load so that everysupport person receives approximately the same number of e-mails. As aresult, the problems of the prior art systems can be solved.

Note that the criteria for determining whether a support person isavailable is not limited to e-mail activities. This is because the samesupport person may provide telephone and facsimile support to customerinquiries. Thus, the "availability" of a support person may involve acombination of activities involving telephone, facsimile, e-mail, dataprocessing, etc.

Processing center 100 contains a server 112 that records all activity inthe center. For example, it contains records of who are present in thecenter at a particular time and are available for service, as well asrecords of all e-mails that are pending and have been processed bycenter 100. Server 112 is called herein the "stat-server." It should benote that many types of information can be recorded, and the choice ofinformation is determined on a case-by-case basis.

Processing center 100 also contains a database 114 that containsdetailed information on each support person, products, and customers.Information of support persons includes their skill set (e.g., productexpertise, written language ability) and prior relationship withcustomers. Information of customers (based on the incoming e-mailaddress) includes the content of their previous e-mails, the productsthey bought, their physical addresses (obtained from productregistration information), etc.

Processing center 100 also contains a router 116. This router selectsthe most qualified and available support person to respond to aparticular e-mail based on one or more algorithms (or scripts). Variousfactors in a routing strategy will be described below.

In one embodiment of the present invention, database 114, router 116 andstat-server 112 could be a database, router and stat-server commonlyused in telephony call centers. The advantage of this embodiment is thatdatabase, router and stat-server software for telephony applications arewell developed and widely available. The use of existing software (orslightly modified versions) could speed up product development time. Intelephony applications, a server is used to provide computer telephonyintegration (CTI) by controlling an automatic call distributor (atelephony hardware device for controlling telephone communicationbetween the public telephone networks and telephones inside a callcenter) and communicating with a database, router and stat-server. Thisserver is called herein the CTI-server. One of the functions of the CTIserver is allowing automatic call distributors of different vendors tobe used with the same database, router and stat-server.

In this embodiment, a CTI-server 130 and an e-mail-to-CTI-server adapter110 is preferably included. As explained above, CTI-server 130 providesa common interface for communicating with database 114, router 116 andstat-server 112 via a digital communication network 128. Because thesesoftware products are based on telephony applications, some of theattributes used therein may not be exactly the same as that used ine-mail applications. For example, the attribute of "telephone number" intelephony applications is not used in e-mail applications. Similarly,the e-mail attribute of "sender's e-mail address" may not berecognizable in telephony applications. These two attributes havesimilar characteristics, and can be used interchangeably provided thatthey are formatted and used properly. One of the functions of adaptor110 is to provide conversion between e-mail attributes and telephonyattributes.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of e-mail-to-CTI-server adaptor 110. Itincludes an e-mail interface 202 for sending data to and receiving datafrom e-mail server 102.

Adaptor 110 also includes an information extractor 204 for extractingrelevant information from e-mails. Extractor 204 contains a parser 206for parsing the content of the e-mails obtained from e-mail server 102.Extractor 204 also contains a storage device for storing an algorithm208 which directs parser 206 to extract appropriate information form thecontent of the e-mails in accordance with predetermined criteria. Theextraction algorithm in extractor 204 is changeable because the codingin algorithm 208 could be changed. Examples of relevant information are:

(a) Addresses: Typically, an e-mail has a portion that contains theaddresses of the sender and recipient. Extractor 204 directs parser 206to extract these e-mail addresses.

(b) Time Stamp: Some e-mail contains the date and time an e-mail issent. Extractor 204 could direct parser 206 to extract this information.This information may be more accurate than the time e-mail server 102receives the e-mail because some e-mails may be delayed for more than aday due to network problems.

(c) Keyword: Extractor may direct parser to conduct a keyword search onthe content of the e-mails. Example of keywords are name of relevantproducts and services provided by the company, special words such as"bugs," "virus", "crash" (for software products), "overheat" and"electric shock" (for hardware products), and words of urgent nature(such as "urgent", "ASAP", and "fast").

Adaptor 110 contains a formatter 210 for formatting the relevantinformation into attributes that can be understood by CTI-server 130. Asan example, the sender's e-mail address could be formatted as a caller'stelephone number (which is a telephony attribute). The formattedattribute is sent to a data communication interface 212 whichcommunicates the attributes to CTI server 130 via communication network128.

Adaptor 110 also contains a deformatter 214 that accepts data andcommands from CTI-server 130 and translate them to a form understood bye-mail server 102.

As explained below, router 116 may send (via CTI-server 130) commands toe-mail server 102.

Returning now to router 116, some examples of support person selectioncriteria are:

(a) the product expertise of the support person;

(b) language ability of the support person;

(c) activities the support person (e.g., how many e-mails have thisperson processed and how many are pending);

(d) work load of other support persons in the center (for load balanceamong various support persons);

(e) the language of the incoming e-mail;

(f) the subject matter of the incoming e-mail;

(g) information about the sender;

(h) overall activities of the center (e.g. whether the support personsneed to process jobs other than e-mails); and

(i) the urgency of the matter.

Processing center 100 contains a number of computer terminals, such ascomputers 122 and 124, managed by support persons. When a support personstarts to work, he/she logs in so that stat-server 112 knows who isworking in center 100 and how to reach the support person.

Router 116 obtains information to make selection decision fromstat-server 112 and database 114. Once a decision is made, router 116sends a command to e-mail server 102 to route the e-mail to the selectedcomputer terminal. The support person responds to the e-mail and sendsthe reply to e-mail server 102, which delivers the reply to the sendervia data network 104.

A flow chart 150 showing the operation of e-mail processing center 100is shown in FIG. 3. In step 152, e-mail server 102 receives an e-mail.The e-mail is forwarded to e-mail-to-CTI-server adaptor 110. In step154, adaptor 110 extracts e-mail attributes in accordance withpre-configured rules (embodied in extraction algorithm 208). It alsosends status information and formulates requests to CTI-server 130 usingappropriate extracted attributes. In step 156, CTI-server 130 forwardsthe request and status information to router 116 and stat-server 112. Instep 158, router 116 retrieves information from stat-server 112 anddatabase 114 so as to make routing decision. In step 160, router 116instructs e-mail server 102 to route the e-mail to the computer terminalused by a selected support person, such as computer 122. Because theinstructions from router 116 may be coded in telephony-related relatedcommands, these instructions may need to pass through CTI-router 130,deformatter 210 and e-mail interface 202. Upon receiving the e-mail, thesupport person processes the e-mail using computer 122. If there is aneed to send a reply, the support person writes the reply (step 162),and directs e-mail server 102 to deliver the reply to a recipientconnected to data network 104 (step 164).

In addition to providing basic routing function, router 116 may alsohave a strategy to handle exception situations. For example, if anincoming mail is not answered by the selected support person within apredetermined time interval (e.g., three days), the mail is re-routed toanother qualified and available support person. This strategy preventsmails from being dropped. As another example, there may be times whenthe number of incoming mails exceeds the available resource to answerthese mails (i.e., overflow). Router 116 could store these mails in aqueue and direct e-mail server 102 to alert senders that it may take alittle longer to receive a reply.

It should be noted that if router 116, stat-server 112 and database 114are designed strictly for e-mail applications, there is no need to haveCTI server 130, formatter 210 and deformatter 214. In this case, router116, stat-server 112 and database 114 can communicate with e-mail server102 and information extractor 204 directly.

The invention has been described with reference to a specific exemplaryembodiment thereof Various modification and changes may be madethereunto without departing from the broad spirit and scope of theinvention. The specification and drawings are, accordingly, to beregarded in an illustrative rather than a restrictive sense; theinvention is limited only by the provided claims.

What is claimed is:
 1. A system for routing electronic mail (e-mail) toone of a plurality of support persons in a processing center, each ofsaid support persons having a skill set suitable for responding to acertain type of e-mails, the system comprising:an e-mail server forreceiving said e-mail from a sender; an information extractor adaptedfor extracting relative information from said e-mail; and a router forrouting said e-mail to a selected one of said support persons based onsaid skill set and said extracted information; wherein the system isadapted to further process said e-mail in the event the support personto which the e-mail is first routed does not respond to the e-mailwithin a pre-programmed time interval.
 2. The system of claim 1 furthercomprising a server for recording activity of said processing center,and wherein said routing performed by said router uses said recordedactivity in said server in making routing decisions.
 3. The system ofclaim 2 wherein said activity includes number of e-mails processed bysaid selected support person and number of e-mails waiting to beprocessed by said selected person.
 4. The system of claim 1 furthercomprising a database for storing information on said plurality ofsupport persons in said center, including the skill sets of the supportpersons and wherein said router uses said stored information in saiddata base in making routing decisions.
 5. The system of claim 4 whereinsaid database further stores information about said sender, and saidrouter further uses said sender information in said database in makingrouting decisions.
 6. The system of claim 4 wherein prior contactsbetween said support persons and senders of said e-mail are stored inthe database, and said routing performed by said router uses said storedinformation about prior contacts in making routing decisions.
 7. Thesystem of claim 1 wherein said extractor comprises plural extractionalgorithms.
 8. The system of claim 7 wherein different extractionalgorithms may be selected from among the plurality of extractionalgorithms.
 9. The system of claim 1 further comprising a parser,wherein said information extractor directs said parser to search forkeywords in said e-mail.
 10. The system of claim 1 wherein saidinformation extractor extracts one or more e-mail addresses from saide-mail.
 11. The system of claim 1 wherein said information extractorextracts a time stamp related to said e-mail.